“All hail next gen, can I get an amen?”
Now standing as one of the UK’s biggest and most venerated rock exports, Bring Me The Horizon have become an increasingly hard band to categorise. Even my boiling down to the wide-net of ‘rock’ could be considered fairly reductive, given their penchant for genre-hopping and bold experimentation, but it’s that boundless spirit that has seen the group rise leagues beyond their peers in both scope and popularity. Perhaps even bolder stands their latest release campaign, as the much-delayed and eagerly (& perhaps aggressively) anticipated POST HUMAN: NeX GEn, has essentially surprise-dropped after a tumultuous, and ungodly long rollout period.
Ordinarily, an album’s development, at least to this degree, would not hold much relevance to the assessment or analysis of a record, but I feel that NeX GEn is a very particular case. We’re approaching three years since the record’s first taste, in hyper-pop-punk-core hybrid “DiE4u”, and perhaps even longer since the initial promise of all four chapters (marketed as EPs) of the ‘POST HUMAN’ release series were due to release in the same year. I don’t hold anything against the band for this – it seemed like a far-fetched, fairly unattainable, and perhaps a tad lockdown-brained a proposal to begin with – but it is certainly relevant to the overarching story of NeX GEn’s release.
For one, you might notice that this is certainly not an EP by any stretch of the imagination. Standing at 16 tracks and 55 minutes, NeX GEn is Bring Me The Horizon’s largest mainline release yet. It’s clear that as the development of this project progressed, the vision changed – and it perhaps came out better for it. Truthfully, I was not sold on lead singles “DiE4u” or “sTraNgeRs” (nor am I particularly enjoying having to refer to the tracklist each time I need to spell a song title out due to the capitalisation). However, as time went on and we were drip-fed more singles, promises of release dates and more, I became more intrigued by what this project was going to sound like as a cohesive unit – if it were destined to be one.
See, “AmEN!” (seriously, fuck off with these case changes), featuring rapper Lil Uzi Vert alongside legendary Glassjaw frontman Daryl Palumbo, signalled that this second chapter wasn’t all to be dead-on-arrival emo balladry (see: “sTraNgeRs”) and pop punk with hamfisted breakcore and metalcore elements (see: “LosT”). No, in fact, “AmEN!” represented much more of what I loved about the first entry in the series, SURVIVAL HORROR. A keen blend of the acutely aggressive sound they had just recently begun to re-embrace, alongside their new-found skill in writing infectious pop hooks and crafting some seriously interesting production.
This notion followed suit in the most recently released single, “Kool-Aid” (a normal title!), a raucous, belligerent, yet undeniably catchy track that pulled me right in, and held my attention. There is certainly a case to be made that these tracks, for all their strengths, are far less adventurous than those I’ve singled out as weaker – but I believe there’s something in that. I adored many of the experimental efforts on amo, for instance, and yet there was something so deeply unsatisfying and relatively hamfisted about what they were trying to achieve with many of these singles.
Then, too, came the departure of long-time keyboardist, co-vocalist, songwriter and producer Jordan Fish. I would certainly not go as far as to say that Bring Me The Horizon’s overwhelming popularity and success in the past decade is entirely owed to him, but his masterful songwriting and production helped lead the band through era after era of iconic songs and unforeseeable growth. His presence within the band’s core writing unit will surely be missed, and while I’m certain much of NeX GEn was completed with Fish still an integral member, it left me, and I’m sure many others with an air of uncertainty as to how (or if) the project would pan out as a result.
With that being said, the brief glimpses of true greatness displayed that Bring Me The Horizon still had the wits about them to make something truly engaging again, with or without Fish. Ultimately, I went into NeX GEn with a slightly renewed hope, if some healthy reservation, and was met with a colossal package that, by all accounts, I wasn’t quite expecting.
It’s fairly obvious looking at the track listing alone, but my god this thing is big. In the album’s first half, we’re given a decent spread of what to expect – at least within the absurdly wide bounds of what Bring Me The Horizon seek to achieve. Early noughties pop punk/emo bangers “YOUtopia” (oh my god) and “Top 10 staTues tHat CriEd bloOd” (seriously, fuck off) provide peppy and infectious energy, and resonated with me far more than the group’s previous attempts with these sounds. This is perhaps owed by the seeming lack of overt gimmicks, simply crafting a well-executed and faithful homage to the sounds they’re inspired by – though the latter of the two does still contain a surprisingly effective and chaotic noisecore breakdown.
Other early cuts such as “liMOusIne” (Jesus Christ), featuring pop vocalist AURORA, as well as the aforementioned “Kool-Aid” showcase the band’s heavier side in new and exciting ways. The former of the two in particular grabbed me in its almost Deftones/Moodring-esque sonic palette, replete with absurdly low-tuned guitars and a biting, groovy breakdown toward its conclusion. “a bulleT w- my namE On” (stop it), featuring Underoath’s Spencer Chamberlain, seeks to blend the two notions explored so far, with equal pep and ferocity in both its sound, and its nostalgically melodramatic lyrics and vocal delivery, reminiscent in parts of From First To Last. Its random spouts of hyperpoppy noise don’t do much for me, but they fail to truly hamper the overall experience of what proves to be a true album highlight.
Around this midpoint, the album makes a concerted effort to break up its lengthy runtime in similar fashion to amo, with tactically placed bridge tracks that both function as their own pieces, as well as moments of reprieve, but often manage to feel more substantive than your average interlude. The most notable of these comes in late-album track “[ost] p.u.s.s.-e” (holy shit this is all lower case), a tweaked-out DnB track that pulled me right in with its gargantuan production and tongue-in-cheek sampling, and made me hungry for an entire project from the band in this vein.
A significant amount of the album’s second half is populated by the aforementioned singles, but the deep cuts on display still largely remain of note. Fans that caught the band’s recent UK tour may recognise “n/A” (hmm), as the band pulled live audio from the crowds at these shows to use as a chant sample, interspersed with frontman Oli Sykes self-deprecating lyricism. While “n/A” certainly did not prove a highlight across NeX GEn for me, the fact the crowd chant actually made it into the record is notable, and I can’t deny that hearing what is surely tens of thousands of people chant “hello Oli, you fucking knobhead” made me crack a wide smile.
Perhaps the album’s utmost highlight in its deep cuts comes in its closer, “DIg It” (you barely even tried with this one, guys), however. It’s hardly a surprise, given that throughout the band’s many varied and storied eras, one constant remained, in that Bring Me The Horizon are masters of the closing number. A crescendoing track, replete with some of the most overtly gorgeous and most primally heavy moments in equal measure, “DIg It” is one of the most dynamic and enthralling tracks on NeX GEn. The subdued instrumentation and vulnerable vocal delivery that populate the track’s opening minutes kept my attention, but as the full band drops in toward its explosive conclusion is when my ears truly pricked up. The Sleep Token-esque open-note breakdown that sees the track to its end, with Sykes viciously screaming atop alongside a noisy cacophony of electronics made for, for lack of a better word, a truly epic conclusion.
NeX GEn is an undeniably complicated album to assess. Arguably the most prevalent issue that arises is that the band’s scatterbrained ‘experimentation no matter the cost’ ideology, one that truly made albums like amo tick, doesn’t always seem to work in their favour here. I personally chalk a majority of the missteps on the record up to the band’s insistence on exploring a hyperpop-inspired sound that, truthfully, I don’t think suits them all that much. That being said, against all odds, it’s fairly undeniable that across the monolithic 16-track, 55-minute runtime of POST HUMAN: NeX GEn that there is much to love, even if a few of the album’s tricks don’t always stick the landing. From its gargantuan hooks destined to be belted by arena audiences worldwide, to its surprisingly broad-reaching net of heaviness – pulling in equal measure from the likes of From First To Last and Underoath, all the way to current zoomer beaus Deftones and Sleep Token – this is an (at times overwhelmingly) diverse, bold and experimental release from one of rock’s biggest names right now. Can we bin off this track naming convention next time, though?
7/10
POST HUMAN: NeX GEn is available today via Sony, and you can find the record here.